Hair Stylist Keeps Armed Robber as Sex Slave

Managing editor Carl Schreck cut his journalism teeth as a crime reporter
for The Moscow Times and now spends an unhealthy amount of time scanning the web for the most disturbing and tragicomic crimes Russia has to offer. You can email him at [email protected].

In what is either the weirdest Russian crime story of the year so far or a new low in yellow crime journalism, a female hair stylist in the Kaluga region is suspected of holding an armed robber in captivity as a sex slave for two days after he unsuccessfully tried to knock over her beauty salon.

Attentive Crime Watch readers will need little more than the first paragraph of this post to understand that this bizarre saga was relayed by the intrepid crime hacks over at the web site Life.ru, which, together with newspaper Tvoi Den, is setting the bar extremely high for sensationalist scoops.

According to Life.ru, the events unfolded on the evening of March 14 as the stylist was wrapping up her shift at the salon in the Kaluga region town of Meshchovsk.

The robber, a 32-year-old man identified by Life.ru as "Viktor," burst into the salon at around 5 p.m. waving a pistol and ordered all of the stylists and clients to hit the floor and toss him their money.

At this point, 28-year-old Olga, whom Life.ru describes as a "delicate" girl trained in martial arts, was apparently still standing when she offered to hand over her cash. But when Viktor tried to accept her contribution, Olga surprised him with a quick punch to the chest, knocking the wind out of him before she flipped him to the ground.

Olga proceeded to tie Viktor up with a hair-dryer cord, gagged him and dragged him into a storage room.

Curiously, Life.ru reports, Olga instructed the others to keep working, telling them that the police would soon arrive.

But this feel-good moment for the good guy proved ephemeral. Things soon turned ugly, according to Life.ru.

The police did not come. And after the other stylists and clients went home for the evening, Olga told Viktor to "take off his underwear" and, with apologies to John Cougar Mellencamp, let her do as she pleases, lest she call the cops, Life.ru said.

She tied him to the radiator with handcuffs covered in frilly pink fabric, gave him some Viagra and had her way with him several times over the next 48 hours. When she finally let him go on the evening of March 16, Viktor had been "squeezed like a lemon," Life.ru reported.

First, he went to the hospital to have his injured genitals treated; then he went to police and filed a complaint asking that Olga be brought up on criminal charges for committing "actions of a sexual nature" that left him with injured sexual organs, according to a copy of the complaint posted on Life.ru.

Olga was apparently incensed when she learned of the complaint. She had, after all, even tried to be nice to her purported captive.

"What a jerk," Life.ru quoted her as saying. "Yeah, there were a few times. But I bought him new jeans, gave him food and drink, and gave him 1,000 rubles when he left."

The following day, Olga filed a complaint with police, asking that Viktor be charged in the salon robbery. Life.ru posted a copy of her statement as well.

"I don't know what's going to happen now," the web site quoted a local police officer as saying. "We could put both of them behind bars: him for robbery, her for rape and assault."

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